What World is Coming?

Crocuses discuss market-share liability.
Some of them support it. Some shake
their soft petaled heads. Days are longer.

Early sunrise startles the hillsides.
Between shuffle steps to kick up food,
fox sparrows talk about dignity

and partnership democracy. Daffodils
are animated by citizen equality
though hampered by being only

beginnings, green shoots one wants
to kiss, hints of lemon in their buds.
Granite boulders continue to support

splotches of lichen, quiet as great
moral precepts, always profoundly true,
always partially untrue. Robins ask

what world is coming. They want
to know where darkness starts—in tall
pines, graveled banks, restless waves?

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Barbara Daniels’ Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. She received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Her poetry has appeared in Permafrost, Westchester Review, Philadelphia Stories, Coachella Review, and many other journals.